


Going Forward

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Canon - Manga, Community: fma_fic_contest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy's got some adjusting to do. Set a day after the final battle in the manga.</p><p>Spoilers for the end of the manga/Brotherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Forward

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Weakness (251-500 words) prompt at [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fma_fic_contest/profile)[**fma_fic_contest**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/fma_fic_contest/) . It placed third.
> 
> As this was written shortly after the release of manga volume 104, it was part of a surge of 'Roy adjusts' fics that swept through the fandom and only began to cease when the concluding chapter of the manga was released.

It was good to smell Chris Mustang's favorite laundry soap again.

He'd honestly thought he never would again.

He'd heard the hospital staff make the call - the phone had been not far outside his room, and there wasn't much he could do but eavesdrop even if he hadn't long done so out of pure habit.

"Colonel Mustang needs someplace to go," the nurse had said. "You're listed as next-of-kin, and his medical proxy is in the hospital herself."

Hawkeye needed the observation and the copious amounts of IV fluids, along with the availability of transfusion if the extremely unlikely happened and she started losing blood again. Roy just needed wound care and help.

If he hadn't needed help, he could have just gone straight to his house. Wound care was something someone could just come by for once a day.

The girls had been waiting for him, and had led him inside as if guiding him around was nothing new.

He'd smelled her perfume as they helped him up the stairs.

"It's good to have you home," she said as he was guided to the bed. He heard the others leave the room as he stretched out, exhausted. "I imagine everyone at the hospital was either poking you for blood or information. Do you need some time alone?"

"No, please." He reached out with a hand, groping for her hand even knowing that his hands were both bandaged and it was going to hurt like hell if he actually managed to find her. "Please don't leave me alone. Not yet."

She patted his shoulder. "Then I'm staying." She sighed. "We all stayed in the same room last night. Whatever that horrible thing was... It won't happen again, will it?" Her words were sharp.

"No, it won't."

He thought of that moment in the battle, when he had been one of _maybe_ twenty humans still alive in the entire country...

When he had been an orphan again, and hadn't known if he would hear Hawkeye's voice again...

He tried to hold in the sob.

He felt her hand rub his shoulder. "Roy, what did I tell you when you were three?"

"Not quite three," he corrected with a whisper. Just old enough to never forget his parents and just young enough to switch to calling an aunt 'Momma' instead without lingering confusion.

Old enough to have some concept of what he'd lost.

"It's not a weakness to mourn the loss of how things were. It's weakness to not go forward."

That was when he let control go.

Some time later after he finally tried to dry his eyes on the sheets, he said, "Sorry for being such a bother."

"This isn't being a bother. Now, you arriving on my doorstep once again unable to wipe your own..."

"Hey!"

Neither of them could keep in the laughing.

It was good to laugh again, even if it was about _that_.

"Now, tell me about this lady-friend subordinate I've been hearing rumors about..."


End file.
